1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to capturing data packets from a packet network, processing the data packets, and streaming the processed data packets to a computer or storage device in real time.
2. Description of the Related Art
Early in the evolution of the World Wide Web, database-driven sites consisting of dynamically generated Web pages began replacing Web sites made up of static pages. Thus, static Web sites gave way to the richness and interactivity of Web applications. Serving pages on the fly from a database allowed whole new ways of delivering information customized for the user. A similar revolution in delivering streaming media is underway.
Currently, an Intel xScale processor is utilized with a capture buffer and running a TCP/IP stack that limits streaming or run time store to media (RTSM) to 20 megabits/sec.
In linear and ring Synchronous Digital Hierarchy (SDH) networks or Synchronous Optical Networks (SONET networks), certain requirements for packet data transmission are generally specified to be within predetermined time limits recommended by the standards ITU-T Recommendations. For example, the nominal data rate is 9.95328 Gb/s as defined by the SONET standard rate optical carrier (OC)-192. Problems arise when a packet fails to be received or retransmission of all packets in a sequence is needed.
Multi-protocol over ATM (MPOA) and PPP-over-SONET (POS) are two well known protocols for packet packaging and transport over SONET. One disadvantage of MPOA is its requirement that packetized information be segmented and reassembled to perform Layer 3 IP routing at each intermediate node. This requirement potentially slows the delivery of MPOA packetized information, leading thus to unsatisfactory delivery of video or other time critical information. One disadvantage of POS is that bit errors that cause loss of synchronization increase with average packet size. As multimedia applications tend to have ever larger packet sizes, the reliability of POS potentially decreases for multimedia applications such as streaming video.